Archive for the ‘virtualization’ category

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Enterprise-Grade Virtualization Management Now Available

July 29th, 2010

(The Hosting News) – Managing open source hypervisors, including Xen and KVM, became a lot easier today with the release of ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise edition from Convirture Corp.

The open source version of ConVirt has been available for more than three years and is broadly deployed and well-tested in real-world data centers — having been downloaded more than 30,000 times. In fact, ConVirt1.x is included in most major Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Open SUSE, Debian and others.

ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise extends ConVirt Open Source with the advanced automation and scalability features necessary for running large-scale or mission-critical virtualized environments. By delivering high availability, backup and recovery, storage and network automation, and enterprise-grade security, ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise enables IT managers to meet and exceed service levels while using infrastructure in the most efficient way.

ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise is also the go-to tool for enterprises ready to move beyond virtualized infrastructure management towards a hosted or private cloud model. With an extensive cloud management feature set, which includes multi-tenant security, delegated control, scheduled provisioning, resource limiting, and many more, ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise enables IT organizations to offer infrastructure-as-a-service, while ensuring full isolation and compliance with corporate policies.

“We’ve implemented a variety of virtualization platforms over the years and managing them all – especially the open source hypervisors – has always been the single biggest pain point,” said Steven Scoleri, Principal Architect at GSI Commerce, a leading provider of e-commerce and interactive marketing services. “Our beta test of ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise has gone very well and we think it just may be the game-changer we’ve been looking for. We no longer need experts on hand at all times to complete simple virtualization tasks. We look forward to further exploring ConVirt’s capabilities and using it to manage our entire open source-based virtual data center.”

“Until now, any organization that wanted a complete solution for managing and automating a virtual data center was locked into expensive and proprietary solutions like VMware vCenter,”,” said Arsalan Farooq, CEO of Convirture. “That changes today as ConVirt 2.0’s advanced automation, private cloud management, enterprise scalability and datacenter integration features now meet or exceed what’s available from proprietary platform vendors. With ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise, organizations considering Xen or KVM as open source alternatives to commercial virtualization platforms are no longer forced to compromise on manageability.”

About ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise
ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise supports all of the features available with the ConVirt 2.0 Open Source product including:
- Server pool-based management
- Templates-based provisioning
- Monitoring and configuration management
- Comprehensive virtual machine administration
- Highly scalable, 3-tier, standards-based architecture

In addition, ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise delivers scalability, automation, and private cloud management features that were previously available only for proprietary virtualization platforms, including:

- High availability: ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise ensures that mission-critical applications are always up and running by delivering a comprehensive high availability feature set, including virtual and physical machine failover;

- Backup and recovery: A full backup and recovery feature set ensures successful recovery from planned and unplanned outages. Scheduled and on-demand backups are supported. Restore modes can be for the most recent state or any earlier backup. Both virtual machine state and storage are captured, so virtual machines are brought up in a consistent state.

- Private Cloud Management: A data center that has been virtualized can be turned into a private, infrastructure-as-a-service cloud in a scalable and secure way, with support for full multi-tenant security, delegated control, scheduled provisioning, resource limiting and the ability to create virtual appliances that comply with corporate standards and publish them effortlessly to cloud users.

- Storage and network automation with ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise significantly streamlines the error-prone and time-consuming tasks of configuring network and storage in a virtualized environment. Storage configuration standardizes storage across a server pool by automating configuration of all storage types, including NFS, iSCSi, AOE, Fiber Channel and LVM. Network integration provides a centralized interface for managing virtual networks.

- Enterprise Integration: ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise provides a full suite of integration capabilities, including an open repository, command line interface, and programmatic APIs.

Pricing and Availability
ConVirt 2.0 Enterprise is available immediately direct from Convirture. Pricing starts at $1,495 per host for up to 10 hosts, with volume pricing available for larger environments. A “per virtual machine” pricing package is also available for ISP’s and hosting providers. More information is available at www.convirture.com/contact.html.

About Convirture
Convirture was founded in 2006 to help organizations effectively manage open source virtualization platforms. More information is available at www.convirture.com.

Enterprise-Grade Virtualization Management Now Available

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Posted in News, Xen, kvm, open source, virtualization

SiteGround Selects The Planet Server Cloud

July 26th, 2010

(The Hosting News) – The Planet, the global hosting leader, today announced that one of its largest reseller partners – SiteGround (http://www.siteground.com) – has selected the company’s Server Cloud as the new standard for its cloud offering. According to SiteGround, The Planet Server Cloud uses the best virtualization technology on the market to deliver a service with outstanding reliability, redundancy and flexibility, which is suitable for business websites of all sizes.

SiteGround is a leading provider of web hosting services, with more than 250,000 domains worldwide. The company offers shared hosting, reseller hosting, managed dedicated hosting solutions and now cloud hosting.

“We were early beta participants in The Planet’s Server Cloud testing, which provided us with opportunities to offer feedback on the platform,” said Tenko Nikolov, CEO of SiteGround. “Our customers rely on us to provide them with the best options to support their businesses, so we’ve thoroughly evaluated cloud options on the market. We were looking for pricing predictability and ample bandwidth allocations, in a no-surprises package for our customers. The Planet Server Cloud behaves like a dedicated server by guaranteeing our fair share of space, traffic and CPU, at a cheaper cost. It’s great for small and big sites that want to cut costs while at the same time get a reliable service.”

“Server Cloud was expressly designed for our existing customers, with a platform that’s purpose-built for web-based businesses,” said Carl Meadows, senior product manager for Cloud Services with The Planet. “For resellers like SiteGround, their customers operate websites that depend on platform stability. They’ve got to be up and running around the clock, providing the performance guarantees that keep their customers coming back.”

To learn more about The Planet’s Server Cloud, visit the Web site at http://www.theplanet.com/cloud-hosting/.

About SiteGround
SiteGround.com is a leading provider of web hosting services that hosts more than 250,000 domains worldwide. The company offers shared hosting, business hosting, reseller hosting, managed dedicated hosting solutions and cloud hosting. SiteGround offers a powerful system infrastructure and superior 24/7 technical support that guarantee reliability, uptime and quality of service. For more information about SiteGround, visit the company’s website at http://ww.siteground.com.

About The Planet
The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 18,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 12 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Managed Dedicated Servers, Managed Hosting and data center colocation, all backed by 24×7x365 support. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class service, backed by state-of-the-art data centers and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses. For additional information, visit http://www.theplanet.com

SiteGround Selects The Planet Server Cloud

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Posted in Managed Dedicated hosting, News, cloud, cloud hosting, reseller, server cloud, shared hosting, siteground, virtualization, web hosting

Web Hosting Talk and The Planet Unveil Cloud Benchmarking Tool

July 20th, 2010

(The Hosting News)  – The Planet, the global hosting leader, and Web Hosting Talk, the largest, most influential web hosting community on the Internet, today announced the beta development of a free, online cloud benchmarking tool designed to save businesses time and money when selecting a cloud provider. The new service, known as Bench the Cloud (http://www.benchthecloud.com), gives visibility into the performance of cloud or virtualized server platforms, and provides standardized performance feedback and comparisons.
The site was co-developed by Web Hosting Talk and The Planet. Web Hosting Talk will own and manage the site, and The Planet will become a charter member of Bench the Cloud’s advisory board.
Bench the Cloud is built on a suite of open-source benchmarking tools and measures three key criteria essential to running cloud applications: CPU performance, disk read and disk write speed. Further information about these three performance indices is detailed in an individualized dashboard. Users can sort and filter the public benchmarks according to provider, virtualization status, total RAM and CPU cores. The application can also be used to test non-virtualized machines, and can be downloaded onto any Linux-based machine.
“One of the many popular discussion topics on Web Hosting Talk is how to accurately compare cloud providers based on a standard set of measurements,” said Kevin Gold, director of marketing for iNET Interactive, owner of Web Hosting Talk. “We hear from our community members that it’s difficult to make informed cloud buying decisions. As active members of Web Hosting Talk and an industry leader, The Planet approached us about co-developing a community-driven benchmarking tool that would bring the transparency the global community is seeking.”
“We contributed real-world feedback into building this industry-first tool with Web Hosting Talk,” said Carl Meadows, senior product manager for cloud solutions at The Planet. “We’ve seen first-hand from our customers the time spent researching various cloud providers, and the amount of confusion and misinformation that exists in the marketplace. Our goal in participating is to provide additional value to customers by offering a quick, transparent view of the strengths, weaknesses and performance of solutions – a virtual ‘Consumer Reports’ for the cloud. Customers can now objectively compare solutions before purchase, and make their first pick the right one.”
Web Hosting Talk will hand out invitations to participate in a limited closed beta for Bench the Cloud at its booth at HostingCon 2010, which begins July 19 in Austin, Texas. Stop by booth 134 to receive an invitation, or visit http://www.benchthecloud.com for more information.

About Web Hosting Talk
Web Hosting Talk (http://www.webhostingtalk.com) is the largest, most influential web hosting community on the Internet with over 240,000 registered members and over six million posts generated. It is one of many social media properties owned and operated by iNET Interactive.

About NET Interactive
Founded in 2002, iNET Interactive (whttp://www.iNETinteractive.com), owner of Web Hosting Talk, is a social media company operating prominent online communities for Internet professionals and technology enthusiasts. Its vertically focused communities incorporate user-contributed ratings, reviews, and discussion augmented with professionally produced content.

About The Planet
The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 18,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 12 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Managed Dedicated Servers, Managed Hosting and data center colocation, all backed by 24×7x365 support. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class service, backed by state-of-the-art data centers and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses. For additional information, visit http://www.theplanet.com.
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Web Hosting Talk and The Planet Unveil Cloud Benchmarking Tool

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Posted in Bench the Cloud, Press Releases, The Planet, Web Hosting Talk, cloud, iNET Interactive, virtualization

The Planet Launches New Server Cloud

June 28th, 2010

(The Hosting News) – The Planet, the global hosting leader, today introduced its new Server Cloud, leveraging the power of virtualization and backed by a rich technology platform. With fast and easy provisioning, Server Cloud combines the simplicity and security of dedicated servers with the elasticity of a cloud platform. The initial offering is designed expressly for hosting companies with critical web assets and applications, and hosting resellers looking to complement their dedicated server profile. The production-ready Server Cloud instances provide completely automated provisioning, with login in as little as five minutes. The Planet also provides its highly regarded around-the-clock service to support the Server Cloud offering.
The new Server Cloud provides the consistent high-performance and dedicated resources missing in other virtual server offerings, backed by its powerful infrastructure: Sun Storage Area Networks, Intel Nehalem processors, a Cisco- and Juniper-powered network, and Dell servers.
Using KVM – Kernel-based Virtual Machine – for virtualization, the recommended platform from The Linux Foundation, customers gain access to next-generation cloud capabilities. KVM is rapidly becoming the open-source community standard for virtualization and the agreed-upon platform for future development. The Planet Server Cloud uses the Canonical Ubuntu Server for its KVM platform.
“We’ve conducted extensive surveys with our customers about the features that are most important to them, and accordingly we’ve spared no expense in developing a platform that’s purpose-built for web-based businesses,” said Carl Meadows, senior product manager for Cloud Services with The Planet. “The industry is rife with cloud services hindered by inconsistency and a lack of redundancy. By contrast, our customers count on us for high availability, rapid provisioning, seamless scalability and generous bandwidth, which they’ll find in our new Server Cloud. Customers are able to fully manage all aspects of their virtual servers, as well as include managed services for the platform, which provides the best value in the business.”
“We have a broad range of customers from vastly different industries who count on us to deliver the finest quality content management systems and applications for their websites,” said Wes Byrd, CIO with Dynapp, Inc. (http://www.dynapp.com). “The Planet Server Cloud provides us with the highly available and scalable environment we require to respond to the expanding demands of our customers who want a cloud option.”
“As The Planet comes to market with its new Server Cloud, they are offering their customers very transparent information on the architecture and performance of the platform, with a clear understanding of the SLAs for cloud services,” said Michelle Bailey, IDC Vice President of Enterprise Platforms and Datacenter Trends. “Cloud products continue to proliferate in the market, and customers will look for this clarity to evaluate and compare offerings so they choose the right supplier for their business requirements.”

About The Planet Server Cloud
The Planet Server Cloud provides a broad range of features for customers looking to expand their hosting profile:
Dedicated Resources: All resources for The Planet Server Cloud are 100% guaranteed. Customers receive completely dedicated CPU, RAM, storage and network capacity, which ensures performance isn’t negatively affected by another customer’s usage.

Sun SAN Backend: The Planet Server Cloud is powered by a high-performance, high-availability Sun Storage Area Network (SAN). Many cloud solutions operate on local disks from the host server, leaving customers vulnerable to hardware failures that can result in down time and even data loss. Server Cloud is always available, since computing and storage resources are separate and independent. In the event of a complete host server failure, data is always protected.

Seamless, Rapid CPU, RAM Upgrades: Customers buy only what they require to get started and grow their performance seamlessly as demand expands. A single system reboot from the server host recognizes any added resources.

Enterprise-Grade Infrastructure: The Planet Server Cloud is powered by the latest technologies. From the Sun Microsystems SAN, to network gear supplied by Juniper and Cisco, and Dell servers equipped with Intel’s fast Nehalem processors, the company has developed this robust platform to be resilient under the most difficult loads.

Operating System Support: Customers can select operating system support from both Linux and Windows platforms, including Windows Server 2008 R2.

Managed Services: The Planet offers a full array of service upgrades, including managed server monitoring and remediation, server security management and managed backup.

Next-Generation Virtualization: The Planet built its Server Cloud on the Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) Hypervisor, the primary platform supported by both The Linux Foundation and the top Linux distributions, including Canonical’s Ubuntu and Red Hat. KVM supports the latest virtualization technologies, including live migration, RAM de-duplication, para-virtualized storage and network capabilities, which combine stellar performance and efficiency. While other offerings require operating system (OS) modifications, KVM does not. Customers run unaltered/native versions of their chosen OS without any requirement for development modifications. As a result, they benefit from better security since new patches and updates are immediately available without the requirement for load development intervention.

To learn more about The Planet’s Server Cloud, visit the Web site at http://www.theplanet.com/cloud-hosting/server-cloud.aspx.

About The Planet
The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 18,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 12 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Managed Dedicated Servers, Managed Hosting and data center colocation, all backed by 24×7x365 support. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class service, backed by state-of-the-art data centers and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses. For additional information, visit http://www.theplanet.com.

The Planet Launches New Server Cloud

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Posted in Canonical Ubuntu Server, Carl Meadows, Cisco, Cloud computing, Dell, Dynapp, IDC, Intel Nehalem, Juniper, News, Sun SAN, cloud, dedicated server, kvm, resellers, server cloud, the Linux Foundation, virtual server, virtualization

Solar VPS Launches New Improved Web Site

June 10th, 2010

(The Hosting News) – Solar VPS, the leading provider for Windows and Linux Virtualization Hosting and Services, announced today the launch of its new web site.

“We’ve worked tirelessly over the past 6 months to develop and design an accessible, cross-platform and search engine optimized web site. This new version of our site includes many new service offerings and as a result is significantly larger than any previous version. Making this new version highly user-friendly and efficient was critical and I truly believe we’ve accomplished that goal. Our new site sets the stage for Solar VPS as a true global managed services provider”, said Ross Brouse, CEO of Solar VPS.
 
Celebrating 5 years in business, Solar VPS has expanded upon its service offerings to become much more than just a Virtual Private Server (VPS) provider. New billing and automation systems have facilitated the launch of Hosted Exchange, Hosted Sharepoint, Windows Shared Hosting and Dedicated Servers.

“We’ve spent the past few years focusing on our core infrastructure, identifying the best way we can provide for our customers growing needs. With the launch of the new site and our expanded service offerings, I am confident that Solar VPS is in the perfect position to provide our customers with solid growth opportunities for many years to come”, said Douglas Hazard, Vice President of Sales.

While still incorporating the general look and feel of the previous site, the new web site backend is completely re-written and optimized for performance and usability. SEO analyst and consultant to Solar VPS, Franki Nguyen, engineered the new web site backend design.

“This new site utilizes TN3’s new architecture which heavily focuses on usability and accessibility, Standards Compliance, and SEO. We’re looking forward to feedback and making further tweaks to improve user satisfaction.” Said Franki Nguyen, Director of TN3 Productions Australia.

In addition to the new service offerings, Solar VPS also plans to add several new service offerings to its product portfolio later this year including additional Hosted Messaging and Collaboration services and a highly advanced Cloud Computing Platform.

Solar VPS Launches New Improved Web Site

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Posted in News, VPS, Windows hosting, linux hosting, solar vps, virtualization, website

JDA Software Group Selects Layered Technologies

May 19th, 2010

(The Hosting News) – Layered Technologies, Inc. (Layered Tech), a leading worldwide provider of on-demand and cloud computing IT infrastructure, today announced that it has signed an agreement with JDA Software Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: JDAS), The Supply Chain Company®, to provide dedicated hosting, storage, virtualization and managed services. JDA will consolidate hosting from three data centers with Layered Tech, which will eventually provide and manage the infrastructure that powers the supply chain management, merchandising and pricing excellence solutions relied upon by JDA’s more than 6,000 customers.

 “After acquiring i2 Technologies, JDA decided to find a hosting provider that could grow with us and provide the flexibility that our customers need. Layered Tech’s enterprise experience and superior facilities made moving our infrastructure to Layered Tech a logical choice,” said Joe King, group vice president of Managed Services, JDA Software Group, Inc. “Layered Tech has the capabilities and the capital required to build and manage the core infrastructure that JDA needs.”

 “JDA has created a comprehensive Managed Services solution designed to accelerate the global adoption of our market-leading supply chain, merchandising and pricing solutions. The collaborative relationship with Layered Tech is a key element to the rapidly emerging success of this strategy,” added Hamish Brewer, president and CEO, JDA Software Group, Inc. “By providing a globally scalable, cloud-computing platform, JDA can offer its customers extreme flexibility and dramatically lower costs of ownership supporting our continuing vision to drive distinctive value for the world’s leading retailers, manufacturers and wholesale-distribution companies.”

 “Layered Tech is excited to create a fully managed and dedicated hosting environment for JDA Software Group, Inc. We can support customers of JDA’s size and complexity because we have the infrastructure, technical know-how and financial strength to deliver on their unique set of requirements,” said Todd Abrams, president and founder of Layered Tech. “Our flexibility and enterprise-grade facilities enable us to scale from a smaller 50-seat license JDA customer to its Fortune 100 clients that have extensive supply chain needs.

JDA Software Group Selects Layered Technologies

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Posted in Managed Hosting, News, dedicated hosting, managed services, virtualization

Carpathia Hosting, Citrix and VMLogix Bring Development to the Cloud

May 17th, 2010

(The Hosting News) – Carpathia Hosting, the leading provider of enterprise managed hosting services for government agencies and businesses, today announced it has teamed up with Citrix Systems and VMLogix to launch the InstantOn Virtual Lab Solution™. Priced dramatically lower than deploying dedicated development test lab environments, InstantOn Virtual Lab Solution is a fully managed development and test solution hosted in the cloud. (See related news today from Citrix and VMLogix.)

“Because the InstantOn Virtual Lab Solution is hosted in the cloud, customers no longer need expensive, dedicated hardware or resources devoted to managing and maintaining development and test environments that inherently are unstable and difficult to manage,” said Peter Weber, CEO of Carpathia Hosting. “The combination of Carpathia Hosting, Citrix and VMLogix technologies delivers a truly turn-key solution for enterprises and federal agencies looking to shift this critical workload from dedicated infrastructure to the cloud.”

Designed to provide a development and test bed platform that enables easy deployment and promotion into production, Carpathia’s InstantOn Virtual Lab Solution allows customers to address the challenges of creating a development environment, conducting thorough testing in a quick and efficient fashion, version control, while quickly migrating solutions from the test environment to production through embracing cloud technologies.

“The InstantOn Virtual Lab solution allows users to push development and testing to the cloud, enabling them to convert capital expenses to operating expenses,” said Klaus Oestermann, group vice president and general manager, Networking and Cloud Product Group at Citrix. “Leveraging the Citrix Cloud Solution for Development and Test, users can take advantage of the pay as you go pricing model, paired with elimination of the manual build and configuration tasks. This reduces both the expense and the effort required to create a development and test environment, while enabling access to a pool of computing resources that can be quickly and automatically provisioned.”

Further, making changes to environments is quick and easy with the InstantOn Virtual Lab Solution, while it becomes more realistic to test production-like environments and eventually promote them into production. The solution also allows users to deploy several different projects using the same platform, further increasing savings over traditional development and test environments.

“The self-service nature of VMLogix’s Lab Manager, which InstantOn Virtual Lab Solution runs on, enables on-demand access to the creation and management of testing environments, collapsing testing cycle times up to 50 percent,” said Sameer Dholakia, CEO of VMLogix.

This full-featured development and test solution supports complex topologies including firewall, load balancers and complex networks consistent with network production deployments.

“We have chosen to base our cloud services on Citrix technologies such as XenServer and NetScaler because they provide the lowest TCO and highest level of cloud innovation. We looked at other vendors – including VMware and F5 – and they just didn’t compare,” said Jon Greaves, CTO of Carpathia Hosting. “Leveraging the Citrix Cloud Solution for InstantOn Virtual Lab provides a natural extension of the InstantOn platform into the testing environment. The combination of an elastic and highly agile testing platform that includes an embedded testing toolset allows IT teams to quickly stand up and thoroughly utilize their applications.”

The InstantOn Virtual Lab Solution is just the first of many Platform as a Service solutions Carpathia Hosting will launch in the cloud this year. Others include Virtual Data Recovery and Virtual Desktop solutions that will allow customers to embrace cloud to provide more than just simple virtual machines. For more information on Carpathia Hosting’s unique Virtual Lab Solution, visit http://www.carpathiahosting.com/virtual_lab.

Greaves and Sameer Dholakia, CEO of VMLogix, will host a live webcast on Carpathia’s InstantOn Virtual Lab Solution on Thurs., May 27 at 1:00pm (EDT). For more information and to register, visit http://info.carpathiahosting.com/devtestwebcast052710.html.

Citrix®, Citrix Synergy™, NetScaler®, XenDesktop® and XenServer® are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Carpathia Hosting, Citrix and VMLogix Bring Development to the Cloud

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Posted in Citrix, Cloud computing, News, Web Hosting Company, carpathia hosting, virtualization

Mainline and The Planet Partner to Offer Enterprise-Class Hosting

May 4th, 2010

(The Hosting News) – Mainline Information SystemsTM, an IBM premier business partner and leading provider of hardware, software and virtualization solutions, announced today a partnership with The Planet. As part of The Planet Partner Plus program, Mainline will focus on providing hosting solutions for Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, Compliance, Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

“The Planet provides us with enterprise-quality hosting solutions that are complementary to our core business and can evolve and grow with our current and future IT solutions offerings” said Donn Bullock, Vice President of Sales for the Open Systems Solutions Group at Mainline. “Not only do they provide business-critical hosting and co-location capabilities, but they are dedicated to their partner community. They are a strategic and timely addition to our existing solution portfolio.”

The Planet Partner Plus program offers three unique models to match any partner’s business. Each category provides strategic advantages to enable successful partner relationships. Constructed to ensure zero channel conflict and drive more business, partners benefit from personalized relationships with assigned account managers, expert sales training, and access to events and development programs. The Planet also provides data center tours for partners and their clients, along with meeting rooms to make selling easy and convenient.

“Mainline brings tremendous capabilities to our partner program, with both domestic and international experience,” said Tom Blair, vice president of Global Sales with The Planet. “Their coverage in Canada, Brazil and Mexico enables us to expand in three markets where we have a number of customers. Their knowledge base complements our own, which enables both of our companies to better serve and empower our customers for their business success. We look forward to a long and successful partnership.”

About The Planet
The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 20,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 15.7 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Managed Dedicated Servers, Northstar Managed Hosting and data center colocation, all backed by 24×7x365 support. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class service, backed by state-of-the-art data centers and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses. For additional information, visit www.theplanet.com.

About Mainline Information Systems, Inc.
Founded in 1989, Mainline began by offering information technology solutions and consulting in the IBM midrange markets. Since then, Mainline has become an IBM Premier Business Partner and global provider of information technology and business solutions with more than 600 employees nationwide. Headquartered at 1700 Summit Lake Drive, Tallahassee, Florida 32317, Mainline provides solutions throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Brazil and Mexico. The company may be reached by phone at 850.219.5000 and on the Internet at www.mainline.com. For more information about this solution, call your Mainline account representative or call Mainline directly at 866.490.MAIN (6246).

All company, brand or product names are registered trademarks or trademark of their respective holders.
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Mainline and The Planet Partner to Offer Enterprise-Class Hosting

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Posted in Cloud computing, News, The Planet Partner Plus, Tom Blair, business continuity, channel, compliance, data center tours, disaster recovery, partner program, virtualization

Extreme Networks Increases Data Center Performance

April 20th, 2010

(The Hosting News) –  Extreme Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXTR) today announced its innovative “Direct Attach” architecture for data centers, a network architecture designed to bring virtual machine switching back into the network and out of the server.

Extreme Networks® Direct Attach™ data center architecture is an evolutionary approach that allows Virtual Machines (VMs) to be directly attached to the network without having to go through a full layer of software switching in the server. This approach to virtualized networks greatly simplifies management, monitoring and troubleshooting, while improving network performance in highly virtualized data center environments.

“While embedded virtual switches have enabled early server virtualization projects they can limit performance and increase complexity,” said Joe Skorupa, research vice president, data center and transformation and security, at Gartner, Inc. “Emerging technologies like direct I/O and VEPA allow VM to VM switching to be implemented in hardware in the first physical switch, increasing performance and simplifying management.”

Extreme Networks Direct Attach architecture moves VM switching out of the server and into network switches, delivering wire-speed, network-based switching to VMs while dramatically reducing the number of managed switches through the elimination of the virtual switch layer.

In addition, Extreme Networks Direct Attach architecture significantly simplifies management and troubleshooting by exposing inter-VM traffic to traditional, mature and well-understood networking tools, such as ACLs, firewalls and IDS.

Extreme Networks Direct Attach architecture will interoperate with emerging IEEE 8021.Qbg, providing an easy and seamless migration path for organizations in addition to built-in investment protection.

“Extreme Networks’ Direct Attach architecture for virtual machine switching is a visionary step resulting in cost and performance benefits for the data center,” said Shehzad Merchant, senior director of strategy for Extreme Networks. “Organizations can now transition their data center from a physical to a virtual model without fear of being locked into any proprietary technology, while realizing all the benefits of virtualization, and eliminating some of the most painful objections.”

Extreme Networks Direct Attach architecture will be made available through a licensable ExtremeXOS® software module, ranging across Extreme Networks’ portfolio of data center switching products. This includes fixed configuration stackable Summit® switches, including the Summit X450, Summit X480, Summit X650 and the BlackDiamond® 8800 modular switching platform.

Extreme Networks Direct Attach architecture was named a Finalist for Best of Interop, recognizing the best new products in the Virtualization category at Interop Las Vegas 2010.

Extreme Networks Direct Attach architecture is a critical element included in the Company’s Four Pillar vision for the data center, enabling enterprises, managed hosting providers and cloud providers to seamlessly migrate from a Physical network to a Virtual network to Cloud environments.

Pricing and Availability
Extreme Networks Direct Attach has a targeted release of third quarter via a licensable software module upgrade. The software module will be priced at $995 per Ethernet switch.

Extreme Networks, Inc.
Extreme Networks provides converged Ethernet network infrastructure that support data, voice and video for enterprises and service providers. The company’s network solutions feature high performance, high availability and scalable switching solutions that enable organizations to address real-world communications challenges and opportunities. Operating in more than 50 countries, Extreme Networks provides wired and wireless secure LANs, data center infrastructure and Service Provider Ethernet transport solutions that are complemented by global, 24×7 service and support. For more information, visit: http://www.extremenetworks.com

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Extreme Networks Increases Data Center Performance

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Posted in Data Center, News, Switches, VMs, server, virtualization

Applied Answers Selects Datapipe for Cloud Hosting Solution

April 7th, 2010

(The Hosting News) - Datapipe, a leading provider of managed hosting and IT services, today announced a service agreement with Applied Answers, Inc., developers of FileGenius, a web-based file transfer and storage solution. Datapipe’s private cloud platform, Stratosphere, will deliver fully managed hosting for FileGenius.

“Exhaustive research showed that Datapipe’s cloud offering delivers the flexibility, security, and reliability that our business demands,” said Keith Bumgarner, Founder and CEO of Applied Answers. “Our web-based file and data transfer services require best-in-class network performance and scalability. Datapipe’s proven performance record and global presence ensures that we can scale rapidly as we expand our overseas customer base,” Bumgarner said.

FileGenius makes it easy for organizations to remotely transfer, organize, and store files in a user-friendly, highly secure environment. Using a common web browser, FileGenius customers eliminate costly overnight deliveries, difficult to use and manage FTP servers, and all the problems associated with transporting files as email attachments. The solution can be implemented quickly, with little or no training.

“Datapipe’s managed hosting services are well suited to SaaS providers like Applied Answers,” said Mark Cravotta, Vice-President of Worldwide Sales for Datapipe. “Stratosphere is a fully managed cloud platform that provides Applied Answers with a highly available and secure hosting environment which enables them to achieve their business goals,” Cravotta said.

Datapipe offers comprehensive hosting and security solutions for SaaS providers. In turn, these providers deliver mission critical software to leading Fortune 500 companies across a range of industries.

“Applied Answers is growing rapidly, even during this economic downturn. We anticipate continued, rapid growth in the coming years, necessitating the need for a technology partner that will deliver world-class service and reliability. That’s why we chose Datapipe,” said Bumgarner.

About Applied Answers, Inc.
A privately held company, Applied Answers (www.appliedanswers.com) combines significant talents with decades of hands-on experience to develop technology solutions designed exclusively to improve organizational efficiency and enhance the quality of the work environment.

Applied Answers Selects Datapipe for Cloud Hosting Solution

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